Wives having children while the husband is away

[Panzram]

So I wanted to keep a queen of mine from having any more kids. The logical move was to have her husband lead an army to fight a war on the other side of the country while she stayed on the throne back in her county.

Unfortunately, she still got pregnant. Either the queen was fooling around and nobody in her court had enough basic knowledge of the birds and the bees to realize it, or the game mechanics trumped logic here.

This seems like a glaring problem to me. If a husband and wife are separated, the wife is not going to have his baby. I don't think it would be particularly gamebreaking if this was enforced. Are there no mechanics for this? I'd always assumed that at least if a partner was in prison that no children would be born, but does the game go entirely on the concept that the stork is where babies come from?

 

[JonStryker]

This is one if the most discussed things around here.

Bottom line: Gameplay-wise it doesn't matter where husband and wife are, she'll get pregnant regardless.

 

[Kimberly]

This is one if the most discussed things around here.

Bottom line: Gameplay-wise it doesn't matter where husband and wife are, she'll get pregnant regardless.

I'm not sure if this is true if she's in prison, though.

 

[Pinstar]

They had teleporting sperm back then. That...along with the recipe for Greek Fire, has been lost to us in modern times.

 

[Panzerschiffe]

It would be gamebreaking for councilor vassals among others. You could appoint some jerk you don't like and force him to forge a claim somewhere. No babies and a chance of getting killed? Time to inherit a county.

I don't mind not having control on the baby making process. I don't want to choose which scented oils to use or what kind of medieval foreplay to employ.

 

[Kimberly]

It would be gamebreaking for councilor vassals among others. You could appoint some jerk you don't like and force him to forge a claim somewhere. No babies and a chance of getting killed? Time to inherit a county.

I don't mind not having control on the baby making process. I don't want to choose which scented oils to use or what kind of medieval foreplay to employ.

I for one, would find it hilarious to choose what kind of medieval foreplay to employ. An actual example of raunchy dialogue from a medieval play:

Lancelot of Denmark: Come with me to my castle. I will give you a jewel, the likes of which I think you have never seen.
Sanderijn: No, noble lord, I am still a virgin!

 

[JonStryker]

I'm not sure if this is true if she's in prison, though.

You're right. The teleporting sperm does not find its destination in a dungeon.

 

[Talq]

As others have said, there are lots of situations where couples are separated (both own land, councillers) where you don't want to have the game giving them no children or putting in odd rules to bring them together - so the game simply assumes occasional visits to see each other.

 

[Comrade Chaos]

I for one, would find it hilarious to choose what kind of medieval foreplay to employ. An actual example of raunchy dialogue from a medieval play:

This is why I love the Paradox forums: I now know the plot of a medieval Middle Dutch play.

 

[Kimberly]

This is why I love the Paradox forums: I now know the plot of a medieval Middle Dutch play.

You got learned!

I don't want to know whether "come with me to my castle" is supposed to be accompanied by suggestive hip-thrusts. ;p

 

[Athazel]

just kill the wife no more babies! xD

 

[Swxpert]

They had teleporting sperm back then. That...along with the recipe for Greek Fire, has been lost to us in modern times.

Suddenly it all makes sense why star wars had to take place "A long time ago"

It would be gamebreaking for councilor vassals among others. You could appoint some jerk you don't like and force him to forge a claim somewhere. No babies and a chance of getting killed? Time to inherit a county.

I don't mind not having control on the baby making process. I don't want to choose which scented oils to use or what kind of medieval foreplay to employ.

While I agree with that I would like a tiny bit of control in the making babies by being able to initiate going to the spouses chamber to "have a tumble" :wub: sort of the kind of repeatable non plot like the recruit-able courtier options. Or have a randy queen try and get with you and a celibate character has the option to rebuff her advances.

This is one if the most discussed things around here.

Bottom line: Gameplay-wise it doesn't matter where husband and wife are, she'll get pregnant regardless.

True but this is a good point, when hubby's away the odds of her cheating should drastically rise I am pretty sure adultery happens a lot more than they are making out it does and why does only the man get the start the affair? If you have are playing a queen they don't even have lover events.

 

[unmerged(494787)]

Realistically speaking, without banishment/exile no feudal lord would be away from his demense permanently. Armies went home for the winter and summer seasons. Councilors and advisors would return to report to the king, to speak to their own vassals, whatever. It's just not represented in gameplay due to abstraction.

 

[Demonsul]

just kill the wife no more babies! xD

The wife was the player character. Perhaps you meant kill the husband?

 

[Panzram]

just kill the wife no more babies! xD

As Demonsul said, I was playing as the queen. But regardless, I'm honestly not just complaining about a specific instance where my plans went awry, I thought that this was a pretty glaring impossibility in the mechanics of the game.

It would be gamebreaking for councilor vassals among others. You could appoint some jerk you don't like and force him to forge a claim somewhere. No babies and a chance of getting killed? Time to inherit a county.

I don't feel that this would be any more gamebreaking than appointing children to be bishops to remove them from succession. You only get 5 councilor slots, and even sending a small army with the jerk at the helm would incur the penalties of having a unit raised.

Realistically speaking, without banishment/exile no feudal lord would be away from his demense permanently. Armies went home for the winter and summer seasons. Councilors and advisors would return to report to the king, to speak to their own vassals, whatever. It's just not represented in gameplay due to abstraction.

I guess I'm thinking more of large scale military campaigns such as in the Odyssey where Odysseus spent over a decade away from Ithaca. Wrong time period, I know, but I would think that on some campaigns (such as the crusades) it would be a logistic impossibility to arrange these "visits". Admittedly though, after reading this thread, I overlooked situations where visits would be likely and get now that it's not so much of a black and white issue.

 

[Cuthuthulu]

Would be a nice little detail if being off in a war somewhere decreased fertility while upping the chances of having a bastard.

 

[unmerged(494787)]

The reason the Odysseus was away from Ithaca for so long was primarily for the war in Troy (as told in the Iliad) then ticked off Poseidon and got (or rather, was made) lost on the way home. That said, you don't need to have levies raised to assign some poor schmuck to be away from his wife anymore - just use a retinue.

 

[Jia Xu]

It's a balance issue. If I send my spymaster to go steal technology in Cairo, his family is going to die off, because his wife is back in home in his castle. Characters travel far too often to block pregnancy on location based grounds.

 

[Zireael]

Also, the event saying that the wife is pregnant pops up ~6 months before the baby is born, i.e. 3 months into pregnancy.

And I'd assume occasional visits to see each other too. No one in the era stayed cooped in a province of X.

 

[ASPGolan]

You mean to tell us that you forgot to strap the chastity belt on her before leaving to war? Maaan, big mistake bro... sorry to hear about that. You should've asked us earlier.

---- This reminds me of that joke:

So this medieval guy goes to war and asks his wife to wear a chastity belt. And now, as a loving husband, he talks to his best friend who remains behind during this war to hold a spare of the key for him. And in case six years pass and he doesn't return, he instructs his best friend to "take care" of the little woman, she shouldn't remain alone for the rest of her life - BUT ONLY AFTER SIX YEARS.

Off he goes. Not five minutes pass and his best friends catches up to him galloping and hardly breathing:
- Dude, WAAAIT. You gave me the wrong key!!!!

----
Harsh mate, harsh.

But you know that its not unusual for a king to be visited by the little lady in the camp, right? I mean the king had a pretty comfy tent.